Look Back at July

We look back at July with great sadness.  ARNY were represented at the funeral of former member Darren Stringer which took place on 28 July 2025 at The East Riding Crematorium in Octon.  Darren was a tutor with our friends at E-Yard and they led the funeral cortege from Darren’s favourite café at Bainton Stop to the crematorium, followed by many of his biking colleagues and friends.  It was a very sad day for his family, friends and the advanced riding community as a whole and he will be sorely missed.

July was another very busy month for ARNY with some packed out Saturday training sessions along with the normal social functions as well as a presence at the NY500 Burgers and Bikes event.  Busy Saturday morning training sessions are becoming the norm and in July we held 29 training sessions involving 18 Associates and 14 of the Tutor team.  The benefit of the larger Tutor team is really beginning to pay dividends on Saturday mornings.  It was great to see many new faces at training throughout the month as several new members started their training journeys.  Among those new faces were Stephanie and Steve, who along with George all joined as new members in the month.  As always, we wish them all the best in achieving whatever goals they have.

At the beginning of the month we had a Wednesday Wobble, led by Paul Stead on a beautiful evening finishing at the “No Brainer” café in Bedale where the ride ended with some great food and chat.  The Sunday social ride was led by Andy Hildred, who now joins our Social Ride Leader team, and ended in Tan Hill.  Another well attended and thoroughly enjoyed ride out. 

The month also saw a fair amount of discussion about other social events with Phill Bates putting out a quick poll to gather opinions around future events.  A boat trip, with the obligatory fish and chips, in York proved to be a popular choice and this will now be held in August.

Jezz Booker organised for ARNY to attend the York and North Yorks Road Safety Partnership “Bikes and Burgers” event at NY500 which turned out to be a well-attended and enjoyable event for all who went along.  ARNY Committee member Denise Noha did a great job encouraging people to come to the ARNY stand to get an understanding of what we do and we ended up with a lot of interest which we will now follow up on.  Thanks to all who came along and to the ARNY team who attended on our behalf.  

At the end of the month we held an ARNY Committee meeting, which are held every 6 to 8 weeks.  The meetings are focussed on some general administration, but also give the Committee the opportunity to discuss various topics that are important to the direction of the club. 

Those of you who were around will remember the member questionnaire that Phill Bates circulated some time ago and we are continuing to work on many of the ideas and suggestions we got from that exercise.  Some of the outputs, such as the social calendar, are actively underway as will have been noticed by all.  The meetings also give us a chance to get an update on progress with some of the other initiatives that came out of the survey but are not so visible to all.  We will update with more details as appropriate, but it is good to be able to report that things are moving forward well.  Ideas put forward by all ARNY members are also brought forward and discussed at these meetings too so if you have any ideas, or suggestions, of your own, please feel free to send them on email to secretary@arny.org.uk or talk to one of the Tutor team.

Things remain very busy at ARNY as we continue to enjoy the great riding weather.

Until next time…..